Aw, too cute. This is what I was hoping for after Novil’s comments. Filler nightmare it certainly wasn’t…But it did prompt her to make some very character- and story-defining decisions for herself. Now we just have to sit back, relax, and watch (and deconstruct) a lot of reactions.

It seems that they are *not* splitting the party, but keeping
a constant watch with all together. It seems that despite their good mood
they are now very conspicous about the danger they
are currently in…which I find very good.

I can’t quite decide if this is more tension, or less tension than the last pages.

(We should keep this in mind and remember not to trust future ambiguous statements from authors 😉

Ryn has the most surprise motion marks than the others. Does that make him the most surprised one here? It looks like this was just a nightmare, albeit after so many pages I wonder a little that it might have been caused by magic.

@ Cantremember:
Second though: Lili and Ryn has been there all night keeping guard? Sneaky to not tell us that earlier :c

Also, considering Vivi is sweaty, I find it strange that nobody in the room noticed she was having a nightmare and woke her up. It went on for quite some time, and was partially quite violent. Thus there should be other signs than sweat to show she was having one, which makes it even more strange that the others never awoke her…

Last… I just realized. I thought the last page would be THE cliffhanger of this chapter, and that I would be able to read the rest without feeling any instant urges to read what’s coming up. But with the ending to this, I possibly feel it even more than with the last page.

@ Cantremember:
If it was a magically induced nightmare, it seems possible the spell could prevent an outward reaction. Well , apart from sweat, which could be misconstrued to thinking it’s just hot in the room. Or the dream is ‘steamy’.

The thing to remember about dreams is that time flow is very subjective. You can have a dream that seems to go on for hours and hours and have maybe 40 minutes pass on a real world clock. So the apparent duration of the dream is not really an issue.

The narrative here is brilliantly constructed. The earliest clue to the previous night being a dream was the sudden shift to them sharing the room again after having not done so the previous evening. You don’t just plop back into that situation without some lead in. But by having the dream sequence (regardless of whether or not the pre-lights out segment was real, it probably is) it retroactively justifies that narrative skip.

Also, the ship is heading out to sea! However… depending on Ilias’ reaction they may have forgotten to pull up the anchor. I’m going to assume he recoils at first. Not out of disgust, mind you, but from shock and the presence of company.

Also also, I suspect Ryn and Lillith are going to be excusing themselves post haste… with Ryn trying to press his ear up against the door then being summarily dragged away by Lillith and/or Alissa.

*combination of AAAAWWWWS and cheering in the background*
When I first glanced at the last panel I thought “What’s that gold thing Ryn’s balancing on the end of that stick?” *looks closer* “Wait that’s just the door knob behind his sword.”

2) Can it not be a dream next time? It was so cool to see them actually fighting for their lives. Plus, it’d be cool to see just what each character is capable of as a fighter.

3) In many stories, the subplot involves a man’s efforts to get a relationship with a girl he’s been admiring from afar. In this story, the man is clearly Ilias and the girl is Lilith. So… if the plot is going to do the traditional thing of having the guy get the girl, then Ilias is going to be with Lilith in the end, despite whether or not he is with Viviana at any point before that. Or maybe Ilias will want to be with & stay with Viviana. If so, Ilias is probably going to decline Viviana’s affection for now so that he will hook up with her later, thus “getting the girl” more towards the end. All we really know now is that Ilias’s relationship with Lilith probably won’t change anytime soon; if their relationship was changing, we probably would have seen them have a heart-to-heart conversation or we would have seen conflict between Ilias and Sandril.

4) Gaia is obviously not a comic that follows ordinary story-telling tradition (which is a good thing; this comic is awesome). But there are several hints that indicate that the tradition of “the main character eventually getting the girl” could happen. First, Ilias was obviously smitten with Lilith from the start. Second, Ilias hated Sandril, Lilith’s current boyfriend. Third, Sandril was actually a big jerk and Lilith just couldn’t see it. Traditionally, Lilith’s eyes will eventually be opened, she’ll see Sandril for who he really is, and she will then immediately hook up with Ilias. But the three points I previously mentioned only really apply to the early part of the comic, and a lot has changed. Ilias seems less obsessed with Lilith, he doesn’t mind Sandril as much, and Sandril really isn’t all that bad. But even if the story doesn’t follow tradition perfectly, it still seems to be set up so that the relationships will somehow be jumbled. Because of this, I think that something will have to drastically change before all the relationships are hammered out.
Some possible things that could cause this big change are:
– Viviana dies.
– Sandril dies.
– Lilith’s character develops in such a way that Sandril decides he can’t be with her (instead of vice versa).
– Viviana sees Ilias for the jerk he truly his (probably not gonna happen since he’s been a pretty nice guy so far).
– Viviana is exposed to be the jerk she is (again, unprobable since she’s been nice so far).